


Follow the Blood Crumbs

by ChokolatteJedi



Series: Say A Little Prayer [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Wings, Bluffing, Chloe Decker Doesn't Know, Ella Lopez Finds Out, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Hell Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Whump, Minor Mazikeen/Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Pain, Protective Ella Lopez, Protective Mazikeen (Lucifer TV), Realization, Reveal, Whump, Wings, hard truths, verbal smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23038966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Lucifer contained his face in time to keep from showing Chloe, but he didn't make it out of her radius before the pain overwhelmed him. Luckily, he has friends to help him.
Relationships: Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar, Mazikeen & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Series: Say A Little Prayer [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664404
Comments: 5
Kudos: 229





	1. Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Not Deckerstar! Not Chloe-bashing per se, but people (mostly Ella) aren’t impressed with her and deliver some hard truths occasionally. Based mainly on how much her attitude pissed me off in episodes like ‘Vegas With Some Radish’ and ‘Stewardess Interruptus’. Also not huge on the degrading way she calls Ella “the lab tech” in “Trip to Stabby Town”.

The pain in his back screamed to life, and Lucifer knew that Chloe had returned.

As soon as he realized that, the rest of his superior senses kicked in. He could, faintly, over gunpowder and marble dust and his own damn blood, smell her shampoo and her light perfume.

She was almost completely silent, but, beyond the drifting feathers, the screaming pain in his back, the shaky breathing of one not-quite-yet-dead minion, the cooling of Cain’s body… beyond all that, his immaculate hearing caught a swiftly beating heart, a shaky breath, that hadn’t been there the minute before.

Lucifer looked down at the burning, crackling skin on his arm and hand, and _willed_ it away as he always had. It faded, slower than usual, but finally it was gone. He reached up one tentative hand and felt his cheek, finding only dried sweat and the exact right amount of stubble. He was presentable enough to face her.

Turning, Lucifer found Chloe looking around in amazement. “Detective?” he asked.

“I- I thought-” she cut herself off, and for a moment Lucifer feared that he wasn’t fast enough, but then she gulped and directed wide eyes at him. “Your back; you’re bleeding. You could be paralyzed.”

“Am I?” Now that he thought about it, that certainly could explain the feel of blood running down the back of his leg, appearing as his otherworldly adrenaline was sapped by the Detective’s presence.

“We need to get you to the paramedics,” she said, clearly on some sort of autopilot.

“Well I believe you’ll need to call them first,” he reminded her. Anything to get her out of the room so that he could slip away, back to Lux to heal.

She shook her head. “Dan and Ella called…”

He picked up the sound of sirens, still outside her hearing range, and resisted the urge to curse. He really needed to get away from her so that his pain would fade and he could think a little more clearly.

“Well, I’ll just go wait for them in the alley,” he tried again, and bloody hell was his back hurting now. If this kept up much longer, his wings might just reappear without his say so. It had hurt enough to furl them earlier, and that was with the Detective out of his radius. If only she would look away long enough for him to make a tactical retreat! “In the meantime, shouldn’t you make sure that all of these miscreants are unconscious and unarmed?”

Chloe seemed to see the scene beyond himself and Cain for the first time, and she shook herself, her Detective mask dropping into place. “Yeah, I should check that. And you-” she jabbed a finger at him. “You need to get your back checked out. I know I saw blood.”

“As you wish, Detective,” he agreed easily. Not by the paramedics, of course, but he could certainly check his own back once he was far enough away from her to function properly.

As the Detective moved towards the first minion at the foot of the stairs, Lucifer slid towards the exit, attempting to keep his back turned away from her over-observant eyes.

Lucifer made it down two floors and into a side room before he found he couldn’t move his legs effectively anymore. As he sunk down behind an assortment of shipping crates, he pulled out his phone. Thankfully, it was still intact, having been in his trouser pocket instead of his jacket one. The latter had several bullet holes through it, from erstwhile chest shots.

He managed to unlock it and call Maze - still number one on his speed dial. They might not be on the best terms right now, but he thought they’ve moved past “estranged”. Plus, this was something of an emergency, and he was sure she would come. If not, he could try Doctor Linda, though he didn’t really want to hear another rant about how she ‘isn’t _that_ kind of doctor.’

“What do you want?” Maze answered after two rings, and though she was annoyed, it wasn’t true hatred; Lucifer could work with that.

“I’m afraid I’ve run into a bit of a mess… hhh... and need some help getting my d- _distance_ from the… D’tective.” He managed to say, and Lucifer was surprised at how breathless he sounded. He hadn’t gotten far enough out of her radius, and the pain, both from his hips and his back, was approaching just shy of intolerable.

There was a pause - at least he thought there was - and then Maze’s voice was saying, “twenty minutes.”

She didn’t ask where he was, which meant she had tapped into their connection to find him. His voice must have really concerned her if she hadn’t even bothered with the human nicety of an address, but gone straight to tracking him. Lucifer was tempted to tease her about it, but he found the ability to speak escaping him.

As the darkness crept into his vision, Lucifer had a moment to be grateful that he’d hidden himself behind the crates before his wings unfurled with a bone-rending crack. The darkness took him.


	2. Escape

“Chloe!” Dan sighed, dropping his arms and rushing to her side.

Ella took stock of the room, seeing no visible bad guys, and lowered her own gun. She wasn’t really supposed to bust down doors with it like a real cop, but she wasn’t going to let Dan go in there alone, was she?

“Clear,” Chloe said shakily, and Ella quickly re-holstered her gun. Her hands automatically went for the nitrile gloves in her pocket as her forensics brain took over.

The scene was a mess; dust and chunks of marble, bits of wood, and chips in _everything._ Even weirder were the red and white feathers everywhere. Ella was in the process of reaching for one when she registered a word from Chloe and Dan’s mumbled conversation.

“What was that about Lucifer?” she asked.

“Did he get down to the ambulance?” Chloe repeated. “I think he was injured.”

Ella exchanged a glance with Dan. “We beat the ambulance here,” he said.

“But we didn’t see Lucifer on our way in,” Ella finished. They had cleared each floor before getting to this one… unless they had missed something? Lucifer was just the kind to hide in a corner and lick his wounds, instead of heading down to get help, wasn’t he? Not for the first time, Ella mused that someone had really done a number on him, back in the day.

Since Dan didn’t look like he’d be releasing Chloe any time soon, Ella took the lead. “He probably sat down on the way or something. I’ll go find him and drag him the rest of the way,” she promised.

“Thanks, Ella,” they chorused, and she knew she’d made the right decision.

Once out in the round hallway, Ella peeked out the window. Backup had arrived, but there wasn’t the flurry around the back of the ambulance that she would expect if they were treating someone. So Lucifer probably hadn’t made it outside, or into their backup yet. Well, they were likely to start at the bottom, so Ella decided to start at the top and meet them in the middle.

As she reached the stairs, Ella paused, her forensic spidey senses tingling. Looking around more carefully, she finally spied it; a very light blood trail, starting on the second stair. Almost as though the act of going down the stairs had jarred lose a wound, causing it to start bleeding.

Torn between worry that Chloe was right - Lucifer was hurt - and relief that she’d just be able to follow the blood “crumbs” to find him, Ella set off more quickly than before.

The blood pooled slightly at the foot of the first flight, as though Lucifer had hesitated, maybe looking around, before he continued downstairs. It was clearer on the second flight as well, as though he was moving more slowly, letting a bigger blood droplet fall. At the foot of the second flight was another pool of blood, but this one had also been shuffled through, as Lucifer clearly took off down the hallway instead of continuing down the last three flights.

Of course, Ella continued to follow, watching as the trail told it’s own story. Here Lucifer had paused and looked out of the window, maybe looking for the backup, just as she had earlier? He opened a door, the drips showed, took probably one step inside, and then rejected that room, continuing around the rotunda. Another door, another quick peek, and then the trail continued.

At the third door, however, Ella found a shift. There was no trail away, and this door was still slightly ajar, as though Lucifer hadn’t closed it properly behind himself.

Ella pushed it fully open and peeked in. She didn’t immediately see Lucifer, but the blood trail continued, beckoning her onwards. Another stop at the window, leaning against a tall crate for a moment, then faithfully continuing beyond a row of stacked boxes, until it reached… a wing?

She paused, trying to make sense of what her eyes were seeing, before Ella remembered the crime scene upstairs. There had been feathers everywhere, hadn’t there? She hadn’t seen any kind of feathered item upstairs, but if someone had used it for a shield, and continued to drag it downstairs…

For the first time, it occured to Ella that it might not be Lucifer’s trail she was on after all. What if he had already been downstairs, uninjured, and speaking to an officer just out of her line of sight? What if this was a bad guy who had escaped from upstairs? What if the feathered shield or whatever was left here as a decoy, and he was going to sneak up behind her?

Ella quickly pulled her gun back out, glanced around to make sure no one was about to flank her, and then crept behind the crates.

Her relief at seeing only Lucifer instead of a shady gunman was short lived. He looked _awful_ for one, and Ella did a visual assessment even as she holstered her gun and knelt beside him. The blood had soaked into his shirt at the arm and hip, so she knew he was almost definitely the source of her stalwart trail.

Those mundanities filled her mind enough that it took her another minute to realize exactly what she was seeing. The thing with the feathers; the shield, she had guessed, was a _wing_. A _pair_ of wings, actually. A pair of wings that looked like they had been put through a shredder, if the blood was any indication, and which were also, apparently, _attached to Lucifer!_

Hesitantly, Ella reached for one of the wings, not even sure she wanted to touch it. Before she could, however, Lucifer let out a short, pained gasp. Ella froze, looking back at his face. Wings or no, Lucifer was clearly in a _lot_ of pain, and Ella felt her heart go out to her friend. She could figure out the rest later, but right now she needed to help Lucifer - her friend.

It didn’t take long to check for a pulse - high - or his breathing - fast - and do a rough visual assessment for injuries. Following the blood stains on his white shirt, she found that his arm was bleeding sluggishly from a large gash. The crimson around his middle seemed to be coming from the back, however, as she couldn't find a cut in his shirt around his stomach. Of course, Ella did find several bullet holes in the shirt that didn’t have a wound beneath them, but that was something to science out later, like the wings. His pants were black, so it was hard to tell if they were bloody, but Ella couldn't find any holes or cuts from her first inspection.

She was just debating flipping him over to look at his back when she suddenly found a blade at her throat. “Wha-?”

“What did you do to him?” Maze growled in her ear, and Ella was torn between relief that Lucifer’s friend had come, and an irrational fear that _she_ was the one who had done this.

“Maze! I found him like this,” Ella said carefully, hands frozen in place. “I think he got hurt in the firefight upstairs. I was checking him for wounds.”

Maze seemed to consider that for a moment. “How did you find him?”

“Here? Or-” The slight sting of the knife at her neck made Ella decide to answer both questions. “Dan and I found out they were walking into a trap. We followed them here, but we weren’t fast enough. Upstairs is a mess. Chloe was worried that Lucifer was hurt, so she sent him down to the ambulances, but he didn’t get there. I followed the blood crumbs to find him here.”

Maze was still silent, so Ella added, “He’s my _friend_. I want to help him, Maze.”

Another moment, and the knife was removed. Ella strongly resisted the urge to rub at the nick in her throat; not when her gloves were covered in Lucifer’s blood.

“How’d-”

“He called me,” Maze said without preamble. “I need to get him to safety.” She stepped around Ella and seemed to be doing her own visual assessment of Lucifer.

Ella bit back a gasp; Maze looked like she had been in a fight of her own, and was probably only barely standing! “Are you-”

“I’m fine,” Maze cut her off.

“Okay.” Well that sounded like typical Maze. Ella looked for something else to say. “I’m pretty sure there aren’t any more bad guys around.”

“Not what I’m protecting him from,” Maze replied shortly.

“Oh, okay.” Ella tried to keep up. “Well, if we just call the paramedics up here-”

Maze’s knife wasn’t at her throat, but it had made a very ominous scraping sound as Maze unsheathed it, and Ella suspected that she had said the wrong thing. “Okay, no paramedics?”

Maze grunted agreement, and Ella tried to look at the scene again, to figure out what Maze needed to protect Lucifer from. Maybe whoever had attacked _her_? Though, Ella realized, it might have something to do with those wings that she was currently doing her best to ignore. “So, where is “safe”? Can I help you get him there?”

Maze shot her a glance that Ella recognized from Tribe nights. The kind that said she was considering someone she was about to beat down. Ella again raised her hands in a non-threatening, I’m-not-armed way. “Look, you’re both my friends. I don’t like to let friends bleed to death. Kinda my thing. Let me help.”

After a long moment’s consideration, Maze huffed. “Fine. I need to get him out of here. At least a mile away. Probably back to Lux-”

“You can’t” Ella burst out. “There are more cops there. We had a suspect- that’s where Dan and I came from.” She didn’t know why Maze needed to get Lucifer to safety, but if being here with police and paramedics and Dan and Chloe wasn’t safe, then Lux right now probably wouldn’t be either.

Maze frowned, but this time Ella knew the glare wasn’t directed at her, but at the situation. “Okay.” She cocked her head, like she was thinking, and Ella suspected she was going through a mental rolodex. “Okay, I guess the bea- no, the condo is closer…”

“Okay, so how do we get him there?” Ella asked.

In one swift - too swift - movement, Maze had risen and moved to the window. “Looks like someone kicked over an anthill,” she observed, frustrated.

“Well, from what I saw we have at least one officer injured and our lieutenant dead. Plus Lucifer,” Ella added. “That’s the kind of thing that gets half the precinct on site.”

Maze growled and stalked over to the other window. Her quiet “fuck” clued Ella in that the view was no less busy over there.

After a moment of furious thinking, Ella asked. “Did you drive your Audi today?”

Maze shook her head, “No, the Hellcat.”

Later Ella would take a moment to gush about her awesome taste in fast cars, but right now she could just picture the wine-red convertible trying to slink past the probably dozens of cops outside now and knew it was hopeless. “Not exactly inconspicuous.”

“Ha!” Maze snorted, but Ella could tell she was still worried.

Suddenly, at a sound Ella couldn’t quite identify, Maze whirled, and Ella turned on her knees as quickly as she was able. “Rae Rae?”

Except it couldn’t be Rae Rae. For one, Maze shouldn’t have been able to hear a ghost. For another, Rae Rae was missing her glasses, and wearing some strange robe, and, oh yeah, had giant, slate grey _wings_ sticking out of her own back.

Ella glanced down at Lucifer’s bloody white wings, then back at her oldest friend.

“What do you want?” Maze sneered.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Rae Rae said. “I’m on duty, of course, but I wanted to help.” With that, she reached backwards and grabbed three long feathers from her wing, wincing as she pulled them out.

“Wha-?”

Rae Rae held out the wings to Maze. “These will get you out unseen. You know how, right?” Maze nodded. “Good. Then please explain the rest to Ella. And take care of him. I’ll see you when I can, but I’m not sure-”

Something made her glance over her shoulder, and then she was gone in an instant.

Maze snorted, breaking Ella out of her shock. “Alright, looks like we’ve got our escape route.”

“We?” Ella couldn’t help but ask.

To her surprise, Maze looked uncomfortable. “Look, I can carry him, and I can work Azrael’s invisibility mojo, but then I won’t have a free hand for opening doors and stuff. You down to help?”

And when it came down to it, yes, despite all of her questions and the sudden presence of _wings_ on everyone, Ella was very much down to help Lucifer and Maze. Especially since Rae Rae seemed to know them as well, somehow. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Great.” Maze shoved a feather in her face, and Ella quickly took hold of it. “Don’t let go of that, no matter what. Got it?”

Ella nodded quickly. “Got it.”

“Good. I’m parked right behind Decker’s car, down that alley,” Maze gestured to the opposite side of the building. Once I get this going, no one can hear or see you, but they can feel you, so don’t touch anyone, got it?”

“Got it,” Ella agreed again.

Maze tucked the second feather into Lucifer’s breast pocket, where it stood out proudly against his little red pocket square. “I’ll be right behind you. Go as fast as you can without touching anyone or losing that feather. Got it?”

“Got it,” Ella said again, understanding Maze’s need to reaffirm her instructions.

Maze nodded, looking uncertain, and Ella was suddenly worried at what _more_ they had to face that could phaze the unflappable Maze.

Clutching the third feather in her teeth, Maze placed one hand each on Ella and Lucifer’s arms. Then she growled something in a guttural tone that Ella could almost swear were _words_ but were simultaneously too foreign to be made by a _human_ throat.

Half of Maze’s face seemed to melt away, leaving a tortured mockery of flesh in its wake. Ella drew in a breath, but Maze didn’t seem hurt, just tense, and Ella resolved to shove this new revelation into the back of her mind to ask about later. Instead, she just got to her feet and got out of Maze’s way.

Maze let out a shaky breath around her feather, then scooped up Lucifer, bridal style. Ella wasn’t sure how the other woman did it, because somehow she supported his weight, and wrangled those impossible wings, but then Lucifer let out an involuntary keen and Ella switched to desperately hoping that these mysterious feathers would, indeed, mask any sounds they made. It suddenly made sense why Maze had activated them _before_ picking up Lucifer.

Ella’s thoughts were interrupted by a pointed glare from Maze, and she leaped to shimmy back between the crates and get to the door. Opening it, she saw two unis opening the first door on the far side of the floor, and two more on the stairs. Letting out a shaky breath at how close they had come to discovery, Ella stepped out into the hallway.

When no one reacted to her presence, she held the door open all the way and beckoned Maze forward. They crept past the unis and down the last three flights of stairs to the floor level.

Unfortunately, the front door was currently full of people, and Ella was sure they couldn’t navigate the masses without touching someone. Instead, she led Maze towards the back, where an emergency exit had been marked on the ground plans. She found it right where she remembered, and was relieved to see that someone had already propped it open a few inches, disabling the alarm.

Ella yanked it the rest of the way open, allowing Maze to squeeze through with Lucifer, and Ella could swear she saw the doorframe _bend_ around his head when it should have hit. Filing it away for later along with everything else, Ella just hustled past the few officers milling around, belining for the far alley.

There, she found Chloe’s car right where Maze had described it, and, behind it, half-hidden by a dumpster, was Maze’s Dodge Hellcat. The top was down, so Ella made quick work of shoving the assorted weapons and bags off the backseat so there would be enough space for Lucifer.

Maze was right behind her, laying him gently on the black leather, and Ella again boggled at the way that he, his wings, and the car all seemed to _bend_ around each other for a stomach churning moment.

Then Maze was opening her door, and Ella scrambled to climb into the passenger seat. With a roar of the engine and a squeal of tires, they were quickly out of the alley. At the cross street, Maze spun the car around so she was no longer driving backwards, then sped down the tangle of side streets until she hit the Interstate.

After about ten minutes on the road, Maze pulled back off the 110 and into an abandoned parking lot. Leaving the car idling, she spat out the feather in her mouth, then muttered another guttural, impossible noise. Maze leaned back and fished around in the backseat before emerging with Lucifer’s feather.

Ella moved to hand hers over as well, but instead found Maze shoving the first two at her. “Too dangerous to drive like that,” she muttered. “Put ‘em in the glove box”

Ella quickly did as she was told, noting absently that Maze’s face was back to normal - well, still beat up, but not _decaying_ \- but she looked incredibly tired.

“Look, if you-”

“Nope,” Ella cut her off. “You’re not leaving me here to call an Uber. I’m with you and Luce all the way.”

The look she received in return was grateful, and something Ella had never seen on the normally collected Maze. Then it was gone and she was gunning it back out of the parking lot. Ella couldn’t help her small whoop of delight as they reached sixty in less than four seconds.


	3. Sanctuary

An unexpected forty minutes later, they had pulled up at a quiet warehouse in the suburbs, almost hidden behind tall hedges.

The condo they had been aiming for had had three unis parked outside, and Ella had belatedly remembered that Pierce had extensive files on Lucifer’s real estate holdings.

Maze had cursed, but avoided being seen, and they were soon on their way to the warehouse, which she assured Ella was under her own name “for reasons”.

“So what is this place?” Ella asked, as she fumbled with the keyring that Maze had given her, hurrying to let in the other two.

Maze was again carrying Lucifer, but still had the breath to speak evenly. “Veterinary theater and storage for the bird sanctuary across the way,” she replied.

“A _bird sanctuary_?” Ella repeated.

“The key to legitimate holdings is diversity and charity,” Maze replied, in a sentence that Ella decided to make sense of later. “And it amused me.”

Ella glanced back at them, noting Maze’s fond smile in Lucifer’s direction. And yeah, if her best friend had wings, a bird sanctuary might amuse her too, Ella realized.

Since the sanctuary had closed for the day, they hadn’t bothered with Rae Rae’s feathers, but Maze was still easily navigating Lucifer’s bulk through the narrow corridors. “Double doors up ahead,” she nodded.

Ella jogged ahead to get them, propping open the first with a convenient doorstop and then holding the second open just as Maze reached her.

Letting the door swing shut, Ella turned and realized that they were in some kind of operating room. Well, a veterinary one at least.

Maze dumped Lucifer’s unresponsive body onto the largest metal table in sight, then sagged for a second.

Ella, too, took that moment to catch her breath. She’d been just “going along with it” since she found Lucifer. Well, since Dan’s request, really, and she was running out of steam.

As Maze straitened, however, Ella did as well. “So now what?”

Maze gave her an indecipherable look, then finally shrugged. “We should probably start on him, but I need a little snack first.”

“A snack?” Ella couldn’t help but repeat, even as her own stomach grumbled at the thought.

“C’mon,” Maze grinned and beckoned her to follow. As Ella complied, she continued. “Doing the feather mojo took a lot out of me. I need to charge up if I’m going to be up all night fixing him,” she jerked a thumb over one shoulder towards the OR where they had left Lucifer.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Ella agreed. She couldn’t remember the last time that she ate or drank anything either, and she wouldn’t be any use if she also passed out from lack of food or dehydration.

They found a break room and quickly raided the fridge. Ella felt a little guilty, but was reassured when she saw Maze slap two crisp hundred dollar bills on the counter. She had a flash of a memory of Lucifer doing the same thing after jacking open the snack machine at the precinct, and couldn’t help but smile.

The fact that Maze found and did the same thing to a snack machine in the hallway five minutes later just made her smile widen.

After a quick, but much needed snack, and downing two mugs of cool water from the sink, Ella felt loads better. Maze had scarfed down three times as much food in the same time, one arm wrapped protectively around it like in prison movies, but that was so very low on the list of things for Ella to wonder about today.

When she had finished, and also polished off a flask from her pocket, Maze finally leaned back and looked at Ella. “How’s your doctor stuff?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You know, bandages and stitches and all that,” Maze prompted.

“Oh,” Ella thought about that for a moment. “I’ve got basic first aid, of course, but I’ve also picked up a lot through work, because you have to know how the body goes together and comes apart. I could suture a cut pretty well, I’d say.”

“Perfect,” Maze said, then stood, and Ella had a sudden epiphany.

“Wait, we’re going to operate on Lucifer?”

“Not _operate_ operate,” Maze hedged.

Ella realized that she should probably object more, but then she’d agreed not to take Lucifer to a hospital a while ago, and so what did she think was going to happen?

Back in the OR, they found that Lucifer had shifted, laying flat on his stomach with arms and wings dangling off the sides of the table. It was too short for his feet by a good eighteen inches, and his head only fit because he’d tucked it down against his shoulder. His suit jacket was pulled up from his waist, and his pants were also askew.

Like this, Ella could see the blood - old and fresh alike - on his lower back, and the full mess that were his wings. “Oh-” she gasped, because in all of the rush of _escaping_ with Lucifer, she’d somehow forgotten just how hurt he was.

As Maze cranked on the heaters in the OR, Lucifer shivered slightly, and Ella ran a hand through his hair reassuringly. Then Ella moved towards his back, deciding to stick with human anatomy for now, and she gently cut away his soaked shirt and jacket. There were two holes, but they looked as though they had already started healing. “What the-?”

“As soon as he got out of Decker’s radius, he started healing,” Maze explained, dumping an armful of supplies onto a small, wheeled table. “That’s why I wanted to get this done as soon as possible. Now we’ll have to reopen them enough to get the bullets out.”

Ella decided to file away the whole “healing radius” thing, because right now she actually had a viable plan of action. Taking bullets out of corpses was like, forensics 101, and even the cutting and moving aside skin thing wasn’t entirely foreign. “He’ll need some sedation,” she said, a caveat to Lucifer not actually being a cadaver.

“On it,” Maze said, and Ella glanced over to find her drawing the contents of a vial into a syringe.

“What’s that?”

“Ketamine,” Maze replied blandly.

“You can’t give him that much!” Ella realized, swatting at the full syringe. “That’s enough to stop an elephant!”

“Yeah; should last about an hour,” Maze agreed.

Before Ella could stop her, Maze jabbed the needle into Lucifer’s neck and emptied the plunger.

“Oh my God,” Ella whispered, rushing to feel for the pulse on his neck. But it was still there, only slightly below normal human range, and she breathed out a huge sigh of relief.

“Wrong direction, but whatevs,” Maze grumbled, and Ella added it to the list she would analyze later. “Now, his back?”

“Oh,” Ella returned to Lucifer’s lower back, and then looked over to the tray of supplies Maze had gathered. Grabbing a scalpel and pair of forceps, she spun back just as Maze turned on the brilliant surgical lights.

With nothing left to delay her, Ella took a deep breath. “Okay, I can do this,” she said.

“Sure you can,” Maze agreed.

With that small vote of confidence, Ella bent to her task.

oOo

Compared to the rest of the night, getting the two bullets out of Lucifer’s back had been the easy part. When she finished, Ella found Maze already at work on his left wing. She patiently showed Ella how to remove broken feathers, and how to slide aside those that were still intact. Once the flesh below was exposed, it was just another bullet extraction, but the feathers were a freaky twist for Ella.

Thankfully, since they were in a _bird_ sanctuary, there were the right kind of antiseptics - powder and liquid, not cream, Ella learned - to clean feathers, and everything else they could need to care for wings. Finally, many hours, several more shots of sedative, and another recharging snack break later, Maze and Ella thought they’d finally gotten the last bullet out and cleaned the blood off of Lucifer’s wings.

There were over a hundred bullets, plus the two in his lower back, and Ella swore she could still hear the little clinks of them hitting the pan. Three bullets had gone through his right wing ulna in a tight enough grouping to shatter the bone. The same had happened to one of his left phalanges, and both bones had to be set properly. It was a new skill for Ella, but apparently a routine one for Maze. Maze and Ella had also sutured the cut in his shoulder, and removed a few glass shards from his head and shoulders. The latter had half-healed over, like the bullets, but the former was still fresh and for some reason that angered Maze.

As they worked, Maze had explained that wings were the most vulnerable parts of an angel, to the point that even a small cut was on par with the pain a human felt when gutted. Ella took a moment to absorb the horror that Lucifer was suffering over one hundred bullets in his wings. She couldn’t even fathom that amount of pain, and suddenly the huge amounts of sedative made a lot of sense.

Of course, once she wrapped her head around that, she had to come back to the part she had been ignoring, which was _angels_! Learning that Lucifer was actually _the Devil_ , Amenadiel was an angel, and even that Maze was a demon was a shock, but actually made a lot of things make sense, in context. No one was that good of a method actor, even in LA. However, learning that Rae Rae was an angel too - that she was Lucifer’s little _sister_ \- that would take some time to really process. Ella had a lot of anger and hurt to unpack around that revelation, but she could put aside for now amidst the greater need to help Lucifer.

It was Rae Rae’s - or Azrael’s - power as the Angel of Death that left her invisible and inaudible to humans, while able to slightly bend space around herself when she needed to get inside crushed cars and things. With that power imbued into her feathers, Maze had only needed to activate them with what she said was the language of the Lillim to temporarily apply that same power to the trio, explaining their escape. While invoking an angelic power, however, she had been unable to maintain her usual glamour on her face, revealing its true nature to Ella.

On the one hand, Ella was relieved that what she had seen was “normal”, for Maze at least. On the other hand, she couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been when first injured, and she yearned for a little payback for her Tribe-mate. Speaking of tribe, Maze had also called Linda, once Ella was working confidently on Lucifer’s wings, to give her an update, and Ella gathered from the bits she could hear that the two had been together when Maze got Lucifer’s call.

Maze had also then explained the whole “Decker is a miracle who makes Lucifer vulnerable” thing, which allowed them both to make slightly more sense of Lucifer’s injuries. The bullet holes that Ella had found in his shirt without corresponding holes in his chest had clearly happened when Chloe was at some distance from Lucifer - probably when she was on the phone with Ella and Dan, and they had heard those gunshots in the background just before she hung up. The bullets in his wings and back had clearly happened in Chloe’s presence, but they were unsure if that had been before or after the other. Or maybe both.

They were both slightly confused by the state of his wings, as all of the embedded bullets were on the backside. It was possible, given the blood on the front, that he had been shot from both sides, but there were enough through and through shots bleeding on both sides that could explain it away.

Ella hypothesized that, whatever position he had been in, his wings hadn’t fully covered his back somehow, leading to the two shots that had just missed his L3 and L5 vertebrae. It was something of a miracle - and she should probably strike that word from her vocabulary in this context - that he hadn’t been hit in the spine and paralyzed. At least, they thought he hadn’t. But Ella reminded herself that Lucifer had managed to walk down two flights of stairs, and a paralyzed person couldn’t do that. Probably.

Now, all Ella really wanted to do was sleep, but the sanctuary employees were due in a few hours, so they couldn’t stay. After doing their best to clean up, and pack up some supplies for later, Maze dropped a stack of hundreds onto the suture tray. Satisfied that they had made some reparations, Ella stopped protesting the extra ketamine, syringes, snacks, and water bottles that Maze had stolen.

Ella again opened the doors, while Maze carried Lucifer as though he was weightless, and they made it to the car without incident. Once they were in the middle of the freeway, Ella pulled her phone from the glovebox, where she had stashed it the day before, turned it on, and checked her messages.

When they had needed to remain incognito, Ella had turned it off and tucked it away. Now, on the freeway, where tracking her GPS wouldn’t reveal much, Ella used her phone to very quickly check in at work. She was supposed to have had yesterday and today off, but she had probably also missed the emergency call of all hands on deck after yesterday’s incident.

She was correct, so Ella sent a quick message to her boss, apologizing for not getting the emergency alert on her day off, and promising to be in on time tomorrow. Then she shut her phone back off and tucked it away again.

“Well, that bought me at least half a day’s leeway,” she said.

Maze snorted, but they had had this conversation already yesterday, so Ella just teased, “hey, we can’t all be our own bosses without a day job. Some of us poor schmucks haven’t been hoarding money since the dark ages.”

“Lucifer can give you money,” Maze said, in that clueless-about-social-norms way that she had, which Ella finally understood the reason for.

“Yeah, but I’m not looking to become his sugar baby, so I’d have to work anyway,” Ella shrugged.

“Huh,” Maze thought for a moment. Then, “respect.”

And that was that, with Maze.

Then, as they had discussed, Ella grabbed Lucifer’s phone, which they had found in his hand yesterday, and turned it on. Leaving it on airplane mode, she quickly typed out a text to Chloe, hoping that the note they had worked out sounded suitably Lucifer-ish. Maze had helped her compose it, of course, so it was probably fine. When she finished, she quickly enabled the phone and hit send. As soon as the little bar showed it was completely sent, Ella threw it back into airplane mode, ignoring the bulk of messages that had piled up from Chloe and a few other names.

_Detective, I’m sorry for leaving yesterday, but I’ve got a little healing to do. Don’t worry about me! Back soon._

Maze had already called Linda, and texted Patrick at Lux yesterday, to let him know that he had the reins until further notice, as well as making a mysterious call to “fix” the feather issue at the crime scene, so they were officially caught up.

“So, where to now?” Ella asked.

“It’ll take at least a week until I can get those wings shoved out of sight,” Maze said, which she had mentioned last night too, Ella remembered. “Longer if we’re anywhere near Decker.”

“Right, a mile.” Maze had explained that they’d tested it once, with Maze surveilling Chloe and texting Lucifer as he slowly drove away from her house and kept trying to cut his leg.

“He can’t go to Lux, or any other property that he owns, because there’s too big of a risk of LAPD showing up,” Maze continued. “It won’t take them long to find my local stuff either.” Especially once the bird sanctuary reported the break in and someone ran a trace its owner, Ella knew.

“And whether or not Chloe is with them, you can’t go anywhere with other people for the week,” Ella realized. The wings were a bit conspicuous, after all.

“Right, so the best bet is somewhere they can’t tie to either of us, and well out of Decker’s comfort range, so she doesn’t accidentally happen by,” Maze explained.

“Which is…” Ella prompted when the other woman - demon - fell silent. “Oh come on, it couldn’t hurt to tell me. I’m not gonna narc on you, and we already agreed I’d be sending you updates.”

“His boat,” Maze finally admitted. “ _The Pleiades_. We can get well out of range there, no humans will be around to see his wings, and no one can link it to Lucifer.”

“Good bolthole,” Ella admitted. “I’ll keep you updated. And I won’t tell anyone,” she added, because it couldn’t hurt to reassure Maze of that. Maze just nodded, and soon enough they arrived at their destination, which Ella realized was the marina.

Maybe Maze had meant to let her know where they were going all along.

They used Rae Rae’s feathers again, because there were people on the docks, and Ella again cleared the way for Maze and her precious burden. Lucifer’s boat was a yacht, at least 50 feet long, and the kind of thing that Ella imagined would take a crew of ten to operate. But if Maze seemed to think it was possible to do alone, Ella didn’t doubt her.

Once they were inside, and Rae Rae’s feathers deactivated again, Ella gave Maze a sturdy hug, and Lucifer a very gentle one, before slipping back out to Maze’s Hellcat. Without GPS (laughably trackable), it took a little while to get through the unfamiliar area until she could make it back to the freeway and the familiar route to Lux, but Ella made good time. Then, collecting her own car from the basement parking garage, she drove home and promptly passed out.


	4. Easy Peasy

Lucifer awoke with a groan, and immediately regretted it. Just the act of breathing - of existing - was incredibly painful. Worse than anything except his Fall. Though, actually, now that the fog cleared, he remembered feeling slightly worse than this right before he passed out, so maybe this was an improvement?

Taking stock of his surroundings, Lucifer recognized that he was on the deck on a familiar ship. He was laying on his stomach, and he could feel the weight of his wings on his back. Well, that explained the yacht, and the lack of crew, which meant Maze was busy piloting it.

Turning his head, Lucifer found exactly what he needed. “Ah, Mazie,” he chuckled. Once he got his arms working, It took him less than a minute to chug down the three bottles of whiskey, and only slightly longer to inhale the five frozen pizzas and jumbo bag of cool ranch puffs beside them. With that massive caloric intake, his body should be able to heal faster. Grabbing the last present from his demon, trusting that, after everything, it would be safe, Lucifer plunged the needle into his neck.

He only had a moment to think, _Ah, Special K from my special girl_ before the warm darkness retook him.

oOo

_Lucifer didn’t know how long he had laid there on the dusty stone ground, as he kept fading in and out of consciousness. When he was aware, he remembered the fury of his father’s presence, the press of siblings around him, the agony of hearing his wings crack behind him - broken and dislocated so that he couldn’t use them -, Michael’s sneer as her heavy boot collided with Lucifer’s chest._

_When Lucifer lost consciousness, he dreamed of his Fall. The horrible plunging, twisting feeling in his chest, the burning pain of the fiery gates, the crack of every bone in his body breaking when it finally ended._

_He wasn’t sure how long he laid there, but finally something changed in the landscape before him. A being, where there hadn’t been one before. “Hello?” he asked, consciously willing himself to speak the tongue of the Lillim, instead of the Angelic one._

_“You’re alive,” came the disappointed reply. “Thought you might be a statue.”_

_And he might as well have been, for all that he seemed to be healing at a glacial pace. “Do you have food?” Lucifer asked instead._

_There was a long pause - Lucifer might have even blacked out again - before the creature replied “Maybe.”_

_“I would make it worth your while,” Lucifer promised. He wasn’t sure how, but he was an angel of his word, after all. He would find a way._

_“Maybe,” came the reply._

_Lucifer wasn’t sure how much time had passed, only that he dreamed of the Fall at least twice more, before the creature returned, dropping a fresh carcass beside Lucifer’s face. “Food,” the creature from before grunted._

_His arms still couldn’t move, but Lucifer was able to tilt his neck enough to take a bite out of the offering. It was disgusting, but it was food, and without food his body would take literal aeons to heal._

_Lucifer could feel the change swim though his body after the first few bites. It was slow going, of course, as his body prioritized the ability to eat more. By the time the carcass was gone, he was able to twitch his fingers. A few more meals like that, and he might even be able to feed himself, Lucifer scoffed._

_“Thank you,” he told his silent companion, his tone as heartfelt as possible while speaking Lillim. “More food, please?”_

_“More?” the creature sounded incredulous._

_“A lot more,” Lucifer added. Either it would leave now, figuring this deal was a waste of its time, or it would continue to help and Lucifer would spend centuries repaying it in kind._

_Lucifer lost consciousness again and again, but new carcasses were waiting for him most of the times that he woke up, and he slowly regained his health. As time passed, they shared more conversations, and Lucifer eventually found his first companion in the Lillim._

_And thereafter, everytime he woke up from a wound or injury, the first thing he saw would always be Mazikeen’s offering of food._

oOo

When Lucifer woke again, it was to the feeling of the sun baking his back, warming him. It was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise, and Lucifer reveled in it for a moment before opening his eyes. Maze was still nowhere to be seen, but she had passed by, because his pile of food and drink had been replenished.

Triple Sec wasn’t Lucifer’s favorite drink, but they had done the research, and it was one of the highest caloric alcohols, hence its prominent place in the yacht’s emergency stock. After downing three bottles, as well as two family-sized cheesy pastas and a pile of candy bars, Lucifer again took his shot and returned to his healing coma.

oOo

Ella woke in the late afternoon, feeling less dead, and promptly raided her kitchen for her favorite comfort foods. She vegged out on her couch, revelling in the rainbow sherbet that had been her go-to comfort as a child, and let her mind come to grips with everything she had learned.

To her own surprise, the whole “God and the devil are real” thing wasn’t actually the freakiest part. That was probably Rae Rae, but Ella resolved to wait to jump to any conclusions until she could speak to that particular ghost/angel in person.

No, the part that was currently testing her faith was the idea of God as a Dad. And a really sucky, abusive one at that. Sure, Ella had always thought that the Devil probably wasn’t “pure evil”, and had rolled her eyes a bit at some of the blame-shifting in biblical stories, but she’d never really connected the dots before.

Lucifer-the-method-actor had let enough hints slip, both to Ella and the rest of the Tribe for some things to be pretty clear. Chloe had told her about the massive scars on his back, and how Lucifer claimed they were his father’s fault. Maze and Linda had pointedly referenced his “Daddy issues” more than once. It was also clear that, other than Amenadiel, who’s relationship with Lucifer could be described as rocky at best, none of their siblings were in contact.

Then there was the whole Charlotte Richards thing, and regardless of the “step-mom” weirdness there, very clear words had been shared about how abusive Lucifer’s father had been, both to her and to his sons. And Ella didn’t even want to get started on the signs of lasting trauma and probable PTSD that had been clear once she knew to look for them.

All in all, in Ella’s mind, her friend Lucifer had a shitty, abusive, probably mob-related (why else would Lucifer think he could control people? Not to mention the shady origins of Lucifer’s wealth) probably alcoholic dad (explaining Lucifer’s own high tolerance and constant drinking in socially unacceptable situations) and Ella really wanted nothing more than to meet the man and kick him in the balls.

Ella had even entertained the thought that Lucifer might be in Witsec because of his father’s shady shenanigans. It would explain the lack of papertrail prior to 2011, and the whole Devil schtick could just be his way of protecting and dealing with his previous identity. If his father really was as high up in organized crime as Ella suspected, it would make sense, and she could see Maze as his Marshall handler. But Maze was a little too off-the-rails to be a cop. And Lucifer was a little too flashy to really be trying to hide his identity. People in Witness Protection didn’t usually buy clubs and get themselves on the front page of the paper, after all. It just didn’t fully add up.

But now, Ella was faced with a frighteningly worse revelation. Lucifer’s asshole, abusive, alcoholic, mob-boss of a dad was the same all-loving God that she talked to daily.

Honestly, that was harder for Ella to reconcile than the idea that angels and devils actually walked the Earth, and that Lucifer was one. How could the big guy that she loved also be the man that had starred in last week’s game of “How would you kill someone and get away with it” that the Tribe had played. (Which, of course, Maze had lost, as she didn’t see the need to cover her tracks in that way, and Chloe had almost beaten Ella, once she loosened up enough to play) How could that monster be Ella’s big guy?

That was going to take some reconciling, and Ella knew she wouldn’t have it finished before she had to go to work tomorrow, but that was ok. She didn’t need to be right with Him to go in to work; she just needed to make it past Chloe and Dan’s third degree. Maybe she could book a quick appointment with Linda. Maze had revealed last night that Linda was “in the know”, and currently had both Lucifer and Maze as clients. She had also been with Maze when Lucifer called, and knew that Maze had gone to save him. If anyone could help Ella through her own crisis of faith, it was probably the Doc.

Thanks to her own experiences, Ella had been wary about opening up to a new therapist when she moved to LA, and instead continued to teleconference with her old one in Detroit. But with Linda knowing about Lucifer- and Rae Rae! Ella suddenly realized. Instead of being in therapy to explain why she would hallucinate up a ghost friend, Ella could- … she didn’t even know what she could talk about. But here was someone who wouldn’t have “Ella is crazy” as a starting point. How many of her therapeutic revelations from the past decade were actually bullshit based on the knowledge that Rae Rae was real?

Okay, Ella was definitely setting up regular appointments with Linda as soon as she was able. In the meantime, all she had to do was bluff Chloe and Dan at work tomorrow.

Easy peasy.

oOo

When Ella walked into the precinct the next morning, one of the forensics newbies immediately glued himself to her side. “Miss Lopez, I finished analyzing those wing-shaped shield-things that were at the- at the scene.”

“What?”

“Oh, right,” Jeremy facepalmed. “I forgot that you were off duty. You did get the memo about the shooting?”

“I just saw that it was an all hands on deck,” Ella admitted. “I didn’t get any details.”

“Oh, wow. Ok.” Jeremy took a deep breath. “There was a firefight between the Lieutenant, Detective Decker, and Mister Morningstar, and a bunch of the Sinnerman’s goons.”

“What?” Ella did her best to feign surprise, but wasn’t sure if she’d pulled it off.

“Yeah, there’s rumors going around that the Lieutenant was working for the Sinnerman!”

“Is everyone okay?” Ella quickly asked. Chloe had been up and walking last she saw, but that wasn’t a guarantee.

“Detective Decker was shot in the chest, but her vest saved her. She’s got a fractured rib, though.” Jeremy said quickly. “The Lieutenant and some of the goons are dead. Mister Morningstar vanished from the scene. Some people said that he died, some said he was kidnapped, and some said he was just fine.”

“Since when do we listen to ‘some people’?” Ella teased him. “I won’t believe it until the evidence tells me so.” She tried to ignore the oddity of Jeremy calling Lucifer by his last name. The Devil was very much a first-name-basis kind of guy, and it was a little odd that Jeremy wasn’t under his spell by now. Lucifer seemed to make a point of meeting every single person in the station…

Jeremy handed Ella a thick file, and she quickly flipped through it, skimming the parts she knew about and focusing on the others. Chloe was going to be fine... Dan didn’t have a scratch… there was the evidence that Pierce was the sinnerman… the goon from Lux had been arrested… blood trail to the fourth floor... aha! _Two large feathered oblong shields were found in a storeroom, as well as a puddle of blood presumed to belong to L Morninstar. The shields were apparently pulled from a crate of antiquities upstairs and used as protection during the gunfight. The feathers around the scene appear to have been blown off of the shields…_

There was the handiwork of Maze’s fixer. Ella had no idea how he had gotten inside the perimeter, where the shields had even come from, or what the explanation would be for all the missing bullets, or… well, she didn’t have a lot of answers, but Ella was just relieved that she wouldn’t have to be doing any fast thinking to cover Lucifer’s tracks.

Ella continued skimming to the end of the report, including the mention of tire treads behind Decker’s car in the alley, the suspicious disappearance of Lucifer, all of the usual forensics markers that she usually pieced together. It wasn’t complete, and there were a lot of assumptions and ‘waiting for results’, but the report generally explained the events of the day without any hint of anything _other-worldly_. And Pierce was clearly tied to the ‘bad guys’, not the ‘good guys’, which was another weight off Ella’s mind.

Now all she had to do was do her job, and let the evidence speak to her like always. Maze’s fixer had made it so that Ella didn’t need to do any covering, she could just get to work. After a quick text to Maze - _Your friend does good work. Everyone else is fine. How are you doing? Give my love to the big lug when he wakes._ \- Ella settled into her lab.

oOo

Ella’s focus on her work had been broken twice: once for lunch and then for a quick text from Maze.

_I could use some more alcohol. Tell him yourself, just like your big guy._

That had led to a bit of thought. Did Maze mean that Ella could _pray_ to Lucifer? Would he hear her? That was a bit of a shock, but nothing on her last few days, so Ella did as suggested.

For the rest of the day, as she puttered around her lab, Ella kept up a running commentary to Lucifer in her mind. She asked him how he was doing, ignoring the lack of answers. She detailed the steps she was taking in each analysis, and how the results would affect the case. She told him that Chloe and the others were safe, that Pierce - Cain, as Maze had called him - was gone.

After lunch, when she put on the radio, Ella sang along, not aloud as usual, but in her head, aiming the thoughts at Lucifer as best as she could. All of the usual chit chat that she would direct at him if he was here, she aimed at him in her mind today.

About a half hour before five, as Ella was tidying up to go home, the door to her lab flew open. Chloe burst in like a whirlwind, rushing to Ella, with Dan trailing behind. Ella quickly dropped her files on the table and gave Chloe a strong hug.

When the detective gasped, Ella held her back, looking her over for signs of injury. “What? What’d I miss?” She saw a large bruise on Chloe’s chest and reached for her top.

“Woah,” Chloe grabbed her hand. “My vest caught it. I’m just a little sore.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Ella slapped her forehead. “Jeremy said you had a fractured rib. I completely forgot! I’m so sorry!” She settled for gently squeezing Chloe’s shoulders and giving Dan a glomp hug instead.

“Ella, what happened to you?” Chloe asked, as Dan tried to squirm his way out of her arms.

“Me? I’m fine?”

“You left the crime scene,” Chloe explained. “You went to look for Lucifer and we never heard from you again.”

“Oh!” Ella realized that she hadn’t perfected this part of the story already. She really should have practiced before she came in this morning. “I- I- was searching the building, uh, floor by floor, looking for Lucifer. An- and when I hit the ground… ground floor, that is, and I still hadn’t found him, I, y’know, checked outside. He wasn’t with the paramedics, so I started looking down the alleys. Y- you know, in case he wandered off, hurt? Like, not knowing where he was?”

“That’s good thinking,” Dan said, nodding.

“Did you see him?” Chloe asked.

Ella shook her head. Then, she reconsidered. They had already found the treadmarks, so it was only a matter of time… “I’m not sure, but I saw a car. I think it was Maze’s. She’s got a red one too, right? Not just the black one?”

“See, I told you he probably called Maze,” Dan said, putting his hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “You said she didn’t come home last night, so they’re probably together.”

“Yeah, probably!” Ella jumped on that explanation. “Did he not text you or anything?”

Chloe sighed in exasperation. “Well, yes, he did text me.”

“Wait, he did?” Dan said. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“Well you were in the middle of blaming him for the sun shining,” Chloe snapped back.

Ella had to restrain herself from glaring at Dan. Even before this whole devil realization, she thought that Dan put a little too much blame on Lucifer, for pretty much _everything_. But now, knowing that he was literally the scapegoat for _all_ of humanity, Ella was done putting up with that bullshit.

“You’re seriously still blaming Lucifer for that?” she said, smacking Dan in the arm. “What the hell, man?”

“He _knew_ Pierce was a bad guy!” Dan shot back, as though that explained everything.

“Some people would say the same thing about me,” Ella said quietly.

That brought Dan up short. “What?”

“What else did you think when we ended up in NoHo that night?” Ella challenged. She knew they had all made an unspoken pact to never mention that night in front of Chloe, but she had to protect Lucifer right now. “I know a _bad_ guy. Should I get blamed for everything he does? Should you, for not arresting him back then?”

“What? No- no. Th- that’s-”

“I’m just saying,” Ella cut off his babble. “Cut him some slack before you go blaming Lucifer for stuff that _Pierce_ did.”

When Dan rocked back on his heels, contemplating that, Ella turned to Chloe. “So, what did Lucifer say to you?” She was a little miffed that he had managed to text Chloe yesterday, while neither he nor Maze had thought to contact her until today, but then again, Ella wasn’t the one he was so clearly obsessed with either.

Chloe frowned but dug out her phone. A few swipes later, she read, “ _Detective, I’m sorry for leaving yesterday, but I’ve got a little healing to do. Don’t worry about me! Back soon._ ”

Ella did the mental equivalent of facepalming and hoped that her expression didn’t show that to the two detectives. Of course they were talking about the text that _she_ and Maze had sent, pretending to be Lucifer. “W- well, that’s it then,” she tried not to stammer. “It- it sounds like Maze did pick him up. A- and he’s going to be fine!”

“I told him to talk to the paramedics!” Chloe insisted. “And he has to come in to give his statement! He shouldn’t have just left the crime scene! This is so typical of him!”

Ella was torn, unable to reassure Chloe that Lucifer hadn’t been hurt badly enough to see the paramedics, but on the flip side, unable to explain why he wasn’t then fine enough to just show up today to give his statement. She really needed to see Doctor Linda soon.


	5. Kissy-Face Emoji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this story I'm assuming that the Pierce fight took place on Saturday morning (hence Linda still seeing a client the evening before, but able to care for Maze without new patients in the morning), with Ella scheduled to have the normal weekend off. She comes back in on Monday, here.

The rest of the week followed the same basic pattern. Doctor Linda had made a special exception to her office hours and seen Ella every night, to help her come to grips with the whole “divinity is real” thing. Of course, after Rae Rae, Ella’s biggest problem was the number of times she had prayed for God to introduce her to Lucifer’s dad so she could kick him in the _cojones_ , without, you know, realizing that they were one and the same.

Linda, for her part, was relieved to hear that Lucifer and Maze were both ok, having just finished patching up Maze from her fight with Pierce’s goons before Lucifer had called. She was also more than willing to unpack Ella’s past with Rae Rae, and that helped a lot.

By the third night, they had moved to the more formal (compared to her comfy office) and yet less formal (not actually being in a clinic) penthouse at Lux to hang out. It made Ella feel closer to Lucifer and Maze there, and there was plenty of space to store their ice cream in the minifridge behind his bar.

Afterwards, Ella would go home, think a goodnight to Lucifer, and crash into bed. In the morning, it was up and back at the precinct for another day of analyzing the Pierce scene. Chloe had been placed on desk duty until both IA and a doctor cleared her, for Pierce’s corruption and her fractured rib, respectively.

Dan had been avoiding Ella, but from what little she saw through her lab windows, that was more a function of him avoiding everyone, including taking some of the personal days he had been given for Charlotte’s death.

Meanwhile, Ella spent her day narrating at Lucifer in her mind and sending Maze the occasional text. From the terse replies, Ella gathered that Lucifer was eating more than an elephant and sleeping most of the time, but that was the best thing for him. Feeling better about his health, Ella slowly felt the tenseness and worry fade away. And, dare she say it, things started to feel a little bit _normal._

Of course, that was before Chloe came stomping into the lab right before Ella went home for the weekend. “Have you heard from Lucifer?” she demanded.

“Huh? Uh, n- no. Nothing from Lucifer.” Ella said. Maze had contacted her, but not Lucifer. Ella suddenly had a flashback to when she and Lucifer had gone to Vegas to help Candy and he had kept dodging Chloe’s calls in an attempt to preserve her birthday cheer. Ella had taken the mickey from him at the time, but now she found herself in a similar position. Yet another “oh, that makes so much sense in context” moment.

“This is so like him!” Chloe complained. “He- he just takes off, without a word. He is always doing this!”

As far as Ella was aware, Lucifer had only done this twice - both times to Vegas and at least once with very good reason - but it didn’t seem like a good time to mention that. “I thought he texted you?” she said instead.

“He did!” Chloe replied. “Once! That’s it! Nothing since!”

“Oh-”

But Chloe cut her off. “I mean, he knows that Pierce and I were- he spent so much time harassing me about that and now _nothing_? Now he just ghosts me without a word?”

“Not ‘without a word’,” Ella tried to stand up for Lucifer and Maze, but Chloe steamrolled right over her weak protest.

“He knows IA is investigating this; investigating him. The longer he stays away, the worse it looks. Everyone’s looking at me like it's Palmetto all over again!”

“I don’t know what that even-” Ella tried again.

“He hasn’t even checked on me! He knows I was _shot_ and still nothing! He doesn’t even care that I was hurt! God I _hate_ him sometimes!”

In other circumstances, Ella probably would have given Chloe a giant hug and muttered something reassuring about how she didn’t need a man like Lucifer making her feel bad. But today, it was all Ella could do not to blow her top at her friend.

If she knew one thing about Lucifer, Ella knew that he did care very much that Chloe was hurt. Lucifer wasn’t even conscious right now, probably, so of course he wasn’t checking up on Chloe. Though, Ella had sent updates as promised, so even if he was conscious and just not making contact, Maze should have told him that Chloe was fine.

Lucifer had just gone through the most excruciating pain in the universe to protect Chloe less than a week ago. He had literally died and gone to _hell_ for her, according to Linda’s clue in about the ZX3 case. That had, apparently, been the reason for his trip to Vegas: to get over literally going to hell. And the second Vegas trip had been to save Candy from a murderer.

Ella had always known that Lucifer cared deeply about other people, but her increased context had made her realize that he was probably one of the most selfless people on the planet. And it killed her to hear Chloe rag on him like none of that mattered!

Chloe had stopped ranting, and was just staring at Ella a little expectantly. Probably wanting that hug. But Ella was not in the mood to give it right now. Instead, she took a half-step back and looked at Chloe coolly.

“Do you always focus on the negatives with him?” she asked quietly.

“What?” Chloe scoffed. “I don’t-”

“I hadn’t noticed it before,” Ella spoke over her halfhearted protest. “In part, I think, because I didn’t want to notice. Everyone does it. You… Dan… even I did it a few times…”

“I don’t-”

“Do you know what happened, when Lucifer went to Vegas a few months ago?” Ella demanded. “Did you ever even ask him?”

“Of course I did!”

“And did you let him answer, or just throw some assumption in his face?” Ella snapped back. “Because I seem to remember several pointed comments during the week after that, and more than one snide remark about ‘who he found so ravishing’.”

“He was with someone else!” Chloe protested.

“First of all,” Ella held up her finger, just shy of poking Chloe with it, “So what if he was with someone else? Were you two a couple at the time?”

“He’s my partner-”

“Not the same thing. Were. You. A. Couple?”

“No,” Chloe pouted.

“No,” Ella huffed. “So even if he was with someone else, that was none of your business. But second of all, if you had bothered to let him answer, he would have told you that I was the ‘ravishing’ one.”

“What? You and he? I thought so-”

“No.” Ella growled. “I went to Vegas with him, as a _friend_ , because he needed my help. And he said something nice to me, which you somehow found out about and held over his head for weeks.”

“I-”

“And if you had gotten past that single compliment to me, and asked about the rest of his trip, you might have found out that the reason we went there was because someone tried to _kill_ his ex-wife Candy, and he went to see if she was alive.”

“What?!” That was obviously a shock.

“And the reason he didn’t tell you from the start is that he didn’t want to bring you down or make you work a case about Candy on _your birthday_. He was protecting your feelings even while he was worried about her.” Ella finished dishing out her hard truth. “And, because you never listened, you’re still holding it against him _half a year_ later!”

Ella didn’t like hurting people this way, but sometimes the truth needed to be told, no matter who it hurt, and sometimes you had to hurt one person to protect another. Lucifer was the closest thing to family that Ella had in LA, and she’d protect him against anyone - even Chloe. Ella glanced at her wall and saw that it was a few minutes past five. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have plans. And I’m sure you have some _thinking_ to do.”

oOo

The first time that Lucifer managed to stay conscious longer than it took to binge some healing carbs, he risked checking on his wings before taking his next dose of painkillers/sedatives.

The sun was shining down on him again, and he soaked in the rays, delighting in the closest of his stars. Carefully, wary of setting off a chain reaction of pain, he twitched the mounting muscles along his shoulder blades.

There was stiffness, of course, but not the extreme pain that he vaguely remembered. Carefully tensing and flexing the muscles within the wings themselves, he found a handful of exceptionally sore spots, but not the screaming agony he had been expecting. Tentatively, Lucifer tried to furl one, and it closed in against his back with a tolerable amount of discomfort. Tucking away the other one had the same result, and Lucifer sighed with relief as he was now able to partially sit up.

A quick glance around confirmed that they were on _The Pleiades_ , but he couldn’t see any land on the horizon. He heard a sound behind him and conversationally asked Maze, “International waters?”

“Just barely,” she replied. “As a precaution.”

“Ah,” Lucifer acknowledged. Being in International waters looked suspicious, in certain circumstances, but being right on the cusp and “accidentally” going over was far more believable, while still getting them well out of LAPD’s jurisdiction. “Are we going to need to run for it?”

Maze scoffed and moved into his line of sight with another feast for him, though she appeared to have started on the first bottle of bourbon. “Nah, Ella says they’re pretty sure that it was self defense.”

“You’re speaking with Miss Lopez?” Lucifer raised an eyebrow, even as he opened his own bottle.

“She’s keeping us updated,” Maze shrugged. “And she’s taking _everything_ really well.”

Lucifer knew that tone, and a pit formed in his stomach. He knew he had managed to tuck away his demon face before the Detective saw, so why was Maze acting like a human knew? And why would that human be Miss Lopez? She was back at Lux at the time. “Beg pardon?”

“If you didn’t want people _knowing_ , you should have kept your wings from flopping out all over the place,” she scolded.

Lucifer had a distinct memory of painfully tucking away his wings when confronting Cain, but he was also unsurprised to learn that they had popped back out when he was unconscious. “Just Miss Lopez, or…”

“Nah, Just Ella,” Maze took another swig, and it occurred to Lucifer that, despite their Tribe nights, Maze had never called Ella the correct name before now.

“ _Ella_ is it?”

Maze shrugged again. “I’m not gonna keep insulting someone who spent several hours digging bullets out of your wings with me.”

Now that was a revelation, and Lucifer rocked back, ignoring the twinge in his wings, to contemplate it. Apparently Miss Lopez had not only found out about his wings, but, from the sounds of it, helped Maze abscond with him and even tended to his wounds. His esteem of her had risen greatly after their trip to Vegas, but he had still assumed, due to her extreme faith, that she would be less than amenable to learning the truth about him. Amenadiel, sure, but the Devil?

“Apparently she knows your sister,” Maze continued, “and that seemed to freak her out more than you did.”

“Mich-”

“Nah, Azrael,” Maze said quickly.

“Oh, right, I knew that,” Lucifer said, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. He had talked to Azrael about Miss Lopez; knew they were close. He was just relieved that his twin hadn’t gotten her claws into Miss- _Ella_. “So she’s sending us updates?” He tried to get back to the original topic.

In answer, Maze simply pulled out her phone and started scrolling. “ _Your friend does good work. Everyone else is fine. How are you doing? Give my love to the big lug when he wakes.”_

_“These shields are a work of art. I’d never realize the truth if I didn’t know it. Can’t help thinking of you two. Hope you’re ok.”_

_“I hope you’re right about this praying thing, otherwise I’d feel like an idiot. In case he hasn’t heard it, I send you both my love.”_

_“I forgot to mention, Linda sends her love too, by the way. To both of you.”_

_“Chloe’s back on desk duty till her rib heals, but she’s good other than that. No one else was hurt, FYI._ Kissy-face emoji.”

“ _IA hasn’t finished yet, but my inside man tells me that it’s pretty clearly self-defense, and they’re really just waiting on Lucifer’s statement to make it official. Hope he’s feeling better, and that you still have enough alcohol.”_

 _“So, out of the blue, I was reminded today of our trip to Vegas. I know Lucifer doesn't lie, but he’s not fully above bluffing. Maybe Candy can give him some tips on how to come back to work soon looking like he was actually injured? Now that we’ve found his blood at the scene? Just a thought._ More kissy-face emojis.”

Maze’s lip curled as she narrated the emojis, but Lucifer couldn’t help but smile at the thought behind them. That was certainly an Ella way to handle things. And from the look of it, even Maze was falling into her eminently-huggable trap. She did have a way of drawing folk in, as both he and his sister could attest, and it seemed like even demons were not immune.

Though, the last part did bear some thinking…

Candy’s words floated back to Lucifer. “ _I might pretend to be someone a little less… threatening sometimes, but I don't lie. Call it bluffing. Totally different things._ ”

“Perhaps a little, _bluff_ , might be in order,” Lucifer mused. “Right, Maze, tell me everything that happened.”

oOo

Ella was on her way out to work on Monday when her phone dinged in Maze’s text tone. Worried, she immediately dropped her backpack and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

_You might want to take a break from your lab thingies at ten. Don’t want to miss the show._

Well, that was not the most cryptic message she’d gotten. Ella couldn’t wait to see what happened at ten, though she suspected it might be-

Another text popped onto her screen. _Thank you for all your help, darling._

Without even checking the ID, Ella knew that had to be Lucifer. She was right, he was up and about, and coming back this morning. Part of her fretted that he wasn’t strong enough for it; he’d looked like hell before, frankly. And from what Maze said and didn’t say, he’d spent most of the week unconscious. But who knew how divine healing worked, right? Maybe he just sprung up, right as rain, on the seventh day.

One thing for sure, Ella couldn’t wait to give him the biggest hug. Grabbing her bag again, she hurried to work.


	6. Bluffing

At five to ten, Ella conveniently finished her coffee and headed to the break room for another. She then stopped at the vending machine, debating over which snack to get. At ten, the silent alarm on her smartwatch went off, and Ella heard the elevator down the hall ding.

“You know, this place is not completely ADA compliant,” A familiar and oh-so-welcome voice complained.

“Lucifer?” Ella abandoned her pretense at the vending machine and hurried to the elevator. She halted shy of throwing herself at the Devil for a hug, stymied by what she saw.

Lucifer, dressed in his typical suit, though without the waistcoat, was sitting in a wheelchair, of all things, being pushed by a gorgeous hunk! His hair and eyeliner were done up as usual, but neither could hide the bags under his eyes or the tired, pained look on his face. Ella suspected that his wings were still tender, despite being hidden, but she couldn’t guess at the rest.

“Ah, even in a hoodie, you, Miss Lopez, are a ravishing sight for sore eyes!” Lucifer declared, smiling warmly.

“Luce!” Ella couldn’t hold back any longer, and dove in for a gentle hug, the wheels in her mind spinning. The last time he had called her ravishing was in Vegas, and she had suggested that he talk to C- oh, this was his bluff! “Nice one,” she whispered in his ear, before pulling back slightly. “Oh man, I was so worried about you!” she said at regular volume.

Lucifer immediately straightened his cuffs and patted his hair, recovering from her hug “Yes, well,” he said charmingly, “I couldn’t leave the LAPD hanging, now could I? Benjamin?” he gestured at the hunk behind him and the young man started pushing the wheelchair forward.

Ella quickly moved out of the way and then fell into step beside the chair as they headed towards the office of their temporary Lieutenant. Others joined their procession, including a number of unis who clustered around to check on Lucifer. To Ella’s surprise, he knew every name, and greeted each person individually.

He asked about Officer Rosa’s daughter, Sgt Mark’s parakeet, and Officer Jeffries’ divorce. Children, pets, dates, worries, concerns… Lucifer knew them all, and never faltered on linking a name to a face, from the detectives and unis down to the clerks and janitor. He even knew everyone from the other departments; she was willing to bet there wasn’t a person in the precinct who hadn’t spoken to Lucifer.

And more astoundingly, Lucifer somehow kept track of them all. Ella was on similarly familiar terms with about a dozen of the people she saw regularly in the department, but Lucifer outstripped her tenfold! It suddenly clicked into Ella’s mind that this was probably something like a divine eidetic memory at work. But more than just having a list of names and faces, Lucifer clearly had a mental spreadsheet with all of their deets. She was suddenly tempted to point to a person and ask Lucifer to retell their life's story.

Finally, the shifting crowd thinned out, and their slow little parade made it to Pierce’s old office. Ella quickly introduced Lucifer to their new acting Lieutenant, Devon Mitchell, from the Florence-Graham precinct. Lucifer appeared to be his usual self, other than the wheelchair and his hunky shadow, and he quickly agreed to being interviewed by one of the detectives on loan from Glendale.

Ella escorted Lucifer the rest of the way to the interrogation room, ducking into the observation room when they reached it. Inside she found Chloe and Dan already there, along with the rest of the Glendale team. Ella quietly tucked herself into the back, one eye on the window and one on Chloe and Dan.

When Benjamin pushed Lucifer into the room, Ella could hear Chloe gasp, and Dan also shifted in shock. Ella felt a small, vicious, thrill of satisfaction deep in her gut, immediately followed by sorrow for thinking so negatively of her coworkers. But it had pissed her off, the way they ignored the fact that Lucifer could be hurt, in favor of suspecting him of something. They deserved to have their worldview shaken.

After the usual preliminaries, Benjamin was dismissed and Lucifer and the Glendale detective - Cobbs - got down to it.

“We’ve heard the story from everyone else, so we just need you to fill in some blanks, Mister Morningstar. Please explain what happened when you arrived at the scene.” Cobbs said.

“Well, the Detective cleared the top floor while I stayed out of her way,” Lucifer smiled charmingly. “We made it to the end, to the little rotunda area, and that’s where Pierce and his… _minions_ surrounded us. There were several gunmen, both on the same level as us and around the balcony above. Also there were several crates of, well, one might say antiquities, around us. Gosh, I hope they weren’t too priceless.”

“Anyway, Pierce made it clear that his intention was to kill me, and he offered the- Detective Decker the chance to leave unharmed. I… urged her to go, but… but she stepped in front of me.”

Ella, with her newfound insight, realized that Lucifer’s complex expression was probably a mix of annoyance that the Detective had still been within his mortality radius, and also bewilderment that she would stand up for him. Linda had made it clear - as though the Bible hadn’t already - that the Devil didn’t exactly have friends before now.

“She tried to talk Pierce into letting us both go,” Lucifer continued, “But when it became clear that he would not, she- well I believe “winged him” is the term. Shot his arm so that he couldn’t shoot accurately. That’s when his nearest minion shot her in the chest.”

Lucifer paused here and took a sip of water from the provided glass. He didn’t even go for his flask, and Ella felt so proud of him for maintaining his best behavior in front of the visiting team. Though, come to think of it, he was probably already high on something he’d taken in advance. This was Lucifer, after all, and he was probably still in a decent amount of pain.

Water drunk, Lucifer cleared his throat and continued. “I caught the Detective as she fell, and Pierce ordered his men to finish me off. I used the… the _wings_ they looked like?”

“Yes, we found those shields at the scene,” Cobbs confirmed, and Ella smirked at Lucifer’s way of avoiding a lie.

 _Nice job_ she thought to him. And did she imagine things or did his smile get a tiny bit bigger?

“Yes, well, I shielded the Detective and myself with the wings,” Lucifer continued, holding his arms up in an approximation. “Until I was able to get her out of the line of fire. I found that the Detective had only been hit in her vest, and was going to be fine, so I left her where it was safe and I went back to finish things.”

“And this was when you entered through the window?” Cobbs asked, looking at his notes.

“Element of surprise,” Lucifer explained cheerfully. “I am quite skilled at hand-to-hand combat, and I took out most of the minions. Though I do believe that the one I used as a human shield might have shot one or two of the others. At least one ran away, that I saw.”

Cobbs nodded, but didn’t say anything, and Ella recalled that three of the ‘minions’ had sustained fatal gunshots. Clearly a case of friendly-ish fire.

“Once it was just Pierce and I, he attacked me with a knife; one I recognized as having been stolen from an associate of mine, Mazikeen Smith; I assume he intended to use it to frame her..” Ella couldn’t see Cobbs’ reflection, but he must have been confused, because Lucifer elaborated. “Maze is a bounty hunter for the LAPD, and roommates with Detective Decker. I presume that’s how he- Well, anyway, Maze and I go back - gosh - _eons_. She has a rather unusual set of custom knives - a family thing, I believe - and they are quite distinctive. Most people who knew her would recognize one. I know she would like to get it back, once all of this is done.”

Again Cobbs nodded and made a note, and Ella hoped that Maze would get her knife back. She, of course, knew which knives Lucifer was talking about, having seen the curved, feather blades at more than one Tribe night. Being in the know, she was fairly certain that “family thing” was code for “from Hell” and that wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted floating around the station’s evidence lockup. She was also struck by the idea that the knives resembled Lucifer’s own feathers somewhat, and wondered if they were connected.

“Now where was I?” Lucifer continued. “Oh yes, we fought - Pierce and I - he managed to slice me across the arm here,” and he pointed to the gash Ella had stitched up. “And finally we ended up in that classic movie situation. You know, the one where he stabs at me, and I grab his wrists, and we’re grappling between our chests?” Lucifer tried to pantomime this, but the action clearly pained him, as he stopped with a grimace and then just gestured weakly. “Like that?”

“I understand, Mister Morningstar,” Cobbs said, and Ella let out a quiet breath of relief.

“So we were grappling,” Lucifer continued, “and I shoved, and he fell…” he made a kind of sandwiching gesture with his hands. “There was the knife in his chest.”

“So you landed on top of him,” Cobbs agreed. “Your body weight accounts for the extra pressure that snapped his wrist.” Ella suspected that that wasn’t entirely accurate, but that Lucifer had used part of the truth to lead them to a human-sounding explanation.

Lucifer took another deep sip of water before continuing. “I was kneeling over Pierce, and he- he admitted to killing Charlotte Richards… He claimed he didn’t regret anything he had done… And I told him he was going to Hell…” Lucifer seemed lost for a moment, and Ella knew there must be something deep there, but figured she’d find out eventually. Finally, Lucifer shook himself and said a little too cheerfully (clearly overcompensating), “And then Detective Decker returned. She started processing the scene, and told me to go see the paramedics. I started to, but it all got somewhat… fuzzy. I know my back started hurting, I couldn’t really feel my legs…”

“Coming down from the adrenaline high,” muttered one of the Glendale guys by the window. Ella wasn’t positive, but it seemed like they were accepting Lucifer’s story, maybe even sympathetic to him.

“I am given to understand that I called Maze,” Lucifer continued, “though I don’t remember it clearly…” he frowned, and Ella suspected that that was actually the honest truth. He was probably in so much pain that he didn’t fully recall those moments. “I must have passed right by the backup… I fell unconscious, but apparently Maze picked me up and took me to get private medical treatment,” he said with a little more of his usual cheer. And that was one way of describing Maze and Ella’s work in a bird sanctuary OR, Ella thought sardonically.

“If I may,” Cobbs said politely, “what were your injuries?”

“Oh, I was shot! In the back! Twice, actually!” Lucifer said cheerfully. “Let me-” his attempt to turn was aborted with a pained wince, and he quickly called, “Benjamin!”

His assistant poked a head back into the interview room almost immediately. “Sir?”

“Be a love and get the medical files for me,” Lucifer said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Of course,” Benjamin quickly grabbed a stack of medical files from what appeared to be a bag attached to the back of the wheelchair, which Ella hadn’t noticed earlier. He handed them to Lucifer and then ducked back out of the room.

“Here you are,” Lucifer slid the files across the table to Cobbs. “I asked for a copy for you. It should have everything you need.”

Ella had no doubt that Maze, or more likely one of her “fixers” had made a human-logical medical file that perfectly explained what Lucifer had implied, possibly even with actual pictures of his arm and back, where Ella had removed the very two bullets they were admitting to. It fit with the wheelchair, and any pain from his wings would also present as his back… all in all a tidy, logical, explanation. Once again Ella was impressed with Maze’s resources. And Lucifer’s ability to bluff, come to that. She’d listened carefully, and Lucifer had never actually said that it was _his_ medical file, only that _the_ file should confirm his story. The man - Devil - was a devious genius!

Ella made sure to send that appreciative thought to Lucifer as Cobbs briefly flipped through the file without comment. However, from what Ella could see of the other detectives in the observation room, all the sympathy was on Lucifer’s side. She suspected that IA could close the case by tomorrow, if they found nothing to object to in Lucifer’s story.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t conscious for most of the past week,” Lucifer was saying. “Didn’t even know what day it was. Today’s really my first day, well, not back on my feet, clearly,” he chuckled lightly, gesturing at his lap and the chair, “but, well, let’s just say ‘back on solid ground’.” And that had to be a reference to the yacht, Ella realized, delighted to be in on the joke now.

“Understood,” Cobbs said, shuffling the medical files closed. “I believe that covers everything, Mister Morningstar-”

“Oh, please, _Lucifer_ ,” he smirked.

“Well, Mister Lucifer, I doubt we’ll have any more questions, but if we do…”

“I shall make myself available,” Lucifer agreed cheerfully.

“Thank you.” Cobbs half-stood, gathering his notes, and Lucifer again called for Benjamin.

Once his assistant? concierge? hired hunk? had reappeared and pushed Lucifer out of interrogation, Chloe and Dan had squeezed past the Glendale group and left to meet him, Ella trailing in their wake.

“Lucifer!” Chloe said, giving him a careful hug.

“Detective!” he replied cheerfully.

“Hey man,” Dan gave him a firm handshake once Chloe was out of the way. And at least that was an improvement on his earlier glare. Ella wondered if Lucifer having gotten hurt had soothed some of Dan’s anger. Or maybe he had just really thought about what she said about her brother.

“Daniel,” Lucifer enunciated carefully, in his usual way. But it wasn’t an insult, which was progress.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Chloe demanded, before Ella could dive in for another hug.

“I’m sorry, did you not hear the part where I was unconscious?” Lucifer asked, gesturing back at the observation room.

“But you didn’t even let us know you were in the hospital,” Chloe insisted.

“You’re the one who saw that I was injured at the loft; you told me to get it checked out,” Lucifer pointed out.

“I thought you got a text, too, Chloe,” Ella added. “That one you showed us last week? Didn’t it say he was hurt?”

“Well, yes, but…” she whirled on Lucifer. “If you could text me once, you could have kept up regularly!”

Lucifer held his hands up defensively. “Honestly, Detective, I don’t even remember those days. I suspect that Maze sent that text, actually, so that you wouldn’t worry. She didn’t even give me back my phone until this morning.”

“Wow, you must have been really out of it, Buddy,” Ella interjected. She had seen Maze pack the ketamine, after all, and after hearing how sensitive wings were, she was honestly surprised that he was as conscious as he was right now.

“And not even in the fun way,” Lucifer pouted back.

“So, back home to rest now?” Ella asked.

“Yes, I’ve got strict orders prohibiting almost every kind of fun I could have,” Lucifer sighed dramatically. “Thankfully I’ve got Benjamin here to… take care of me.” And there was the playful, seductive Lucifer she was used to.

“Well, take it easy,” she said, going in for another hug.

“Yeah, take care, man,” Dan added, still a bit standoffish, but at least not declaring that Lucifer deserved this for Charlotte’s death or anything, which Ella would take as a win.

Chloe still looked torn between suspicion, annoyance, and worry, but she also gave Lucifer a quick hug. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said, a little more sternly than Ella thought was necessary.

Then, as they stepped back, Benjamin wheeled Lucifer back towards the elevator, greeting a few more folks along the way. Once he was out of sight, Ella broke away from the still frozen detectives and went back to her lab.

She had finished up everything from the Pierce case last week, and had spent the tail end of Friday catching up on cold case evidence. With most of her shift on desk duty until IA said otherwise, Ella had resumed that work this morning. There was always a backlog of evidence from old cases that predated things like DNA testing, or more modern cases that simply hadn’t been gotten around to, for Ella to work on when her team was down.

Almost automatically, after the habit she had developed the past week, Ella began explaining her actions to Lucifer in her mind. Then she stopped short, remembering that Lucifer had said that he was unconscious for most of the past week. If he could hear her, she wasn’t sure if he’d want her just gibbering about cold cases at him.

Her phone beeped, and Ella pulled it out of her pocket, discovering a text from Lucifer.

_I heard, and I appreciate the thoughts. It’s been a very long time since anyone has sent a prayer my way. I almost didn’t remember how to receive them._

As she gaped at her phone, another message appeared below. _So feel free to gibber away, darling_

Ella’s laugh might have resembled a sob, but she couldn’t deny the joy she felt at his message.

Another message came through before she could put her phone away and return to work. _Oh, and I know what you and Doctor Linda have been up to. I’ll see you at Lux tonight, the usual time. If you’d like, of course._

Ella smiled widely and sent a thought to Lucifer. _You got it, Luce. Same Bat time, same Bat channel._

Then she finally tucked her phone away and went back to work, narrating to Lucifer all the while.


	7. Same Bat Channel

Ella had gotten used to being allowed straight into Lux, especially this past week. Coming from work, it was still early enough that people weren’t lined up around the block outside, but she still felt a little thrill as John the valet took her keys without payment, and Luis the bouncer welcomed her with “Nice to see you tonight, Miss Lopez.”

She wasn’t quite at the same level as Chloe, with her own parking space reserved in the lot below the building, or unrestricted access to the elevator like her and Linda, but it still touched Ella to know that Lucifer - the literal Devil - already trusted her that much.

Ella waved at Patrick and Danielle behind the bar, and both returned the gesture. Danielle even handed her a daiquiri as she passed, and Ella realized it must have been prepared for her in advance. Usually she and Linda ordered their drinks first, before going upstairs. Noticing that Anya was dancing on the table closest to the elevator, Ella also gave her a wave as she waited, and enjoyed the small smile Anya gave back. It was nice to have friends within this area of Lux, not just in the penthouse.

When the elevator arrived on the top floor, Ella saw that she was the last to arrive, as Maze and Linda were already on the couches, while Lucifer stood shirtless at the bar, pouring a drink. “Hello Darling,” Lucifer greeted her cheerfully.

“Hey Luce!” Ella replied, going in for a gentle hug.

Before releasing her, Lucifer whispered in her ear, “You actually do have a space now, you know, and the penthouse code is 48915.”

“Did you-?”

“Read your mind?” Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “No, you were just thinking a little loudly on your way in. And since I’d arranged for the parking spot earlier today, I decided not to keep you in suspense, Miss Lopez.”

Ella took a moment to absorb that before nodding. “Hey, question?”

“Fire away.”

“Why do you still call me Miss Lopez?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve worked together for two years, and after Vegas, and now, well, everything…”

Lucifer blinked, clearly taken aback, and then, of all things, he looked a bit bashful. “Ah, well that’s a remnant of a different era, I suppose. Among people you respect, it was impolite to use their first name before being invited to.”

“So you call me that because I haven’t told you to call me Ella?” she translated. “And you respected me too much to just take the liberty?”

“In a nutshell.”

Well, that made sense, and also probably explained why Lucifer seemed to only refer to Chloe as “Detective.” Still, “You can call me Ella, Lucifer.”

“As you wish, _Ella_ ,” he said, smiling fondly.

Ella took a quick sip of her daiquiri to keep the blush off her cheeks. “Right, so what does that elevator code stand for?”

“What makes you think it stands for anything?” Lucifer asked.

“Because I know you that well,” Ella teased back.

“Well then why don’t you take a guess, and I’ll tell you if you’re hot or cold,” Lucifer offered.

“Well I know it will have nothing to do with the bible,” Ella thought aloud, unable to resist the lure of a puzzle. “And I doubt it is a date from history… it doesn’t match a modern date pattern either…”

“Correct on all counts,” Lucifer agreed.

“Mm, let me think for a little bit,” Ella said, then glanced over at the others on the couch. “Do you-?”

“Oh, yes, shall we?” Lucifer held out his arm in a clear invitation and then followed her to the couch.

After a quick round of hugs, Ella sat down and sipped her daiquiri. “I’m so glad you’re both alright,” she repeated.

“Me too!” Linda chimed in, nudging Maze’s shoulder.

“Yes, well, thank you both for your help in… covering for Maze and I this past week,” Lucifer said, looking a little flustered. “And thank you, Ella, for your excellent doctoring.”

“We really need to meet a real doctor, if you two are going to keep this up,” Linda muttered into her drink.

Having compared notes on angelic/demonic first aid this past week, and also having heard the defibrillator story, Ella was inclined to agree.

“Not as long as you stay away from Decker,” Maze grumbled.

“Fair point,” Lucifer agreed, then took a sip of his drink. “I can honestly say I wouldn’t mind waiting a day or two before visiting her again,” he hitched his shoulders and then rolled them, making Ella think that being around Chloe this morning might have aggravated his healing wings.

“Do you need to let your wings out?” Linda asked. “I mean, do they feel better when you… manifest them, or…?”

Lucifer considered that. “D’you know, I’m not sure.”

“Do you still feel them when they’re… _away_?” Ella asked.

“Mmm, yes. I feel them - the wings themselves - more or less the same way when they’re here; I usually can only tell the difference because I feel them against my back when they’re on this plane. Or I feel the wind or something on them if they’re spread.”

“So if they were to, just, you know, _pop_ out, when you were standing in the middle of the room, not touching anything, you wouldn’t necessarily know?” Ella asked.

“I believe so,” Lucifer said, clearly thinking it over. “In fact, they have done more than once since they were restored, and I didn’t always notice right away.”

“But in terms of them hurting right now, having them in or out wouldn’t make a difference?” Linda persisted.

Lucifer grinned lasciviously at the inadvertent innuendo, but allowed his thought to remain unsaid when Linda groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Yes, I’m perfectly comfortable right now, Doctor,” he said instead.

“So, everything else healed up alright?” Ella asked.

“Oh yes,” Lucifer assured her. “All the cuts and bullet holes and whatnots are all gone now. Wings just take a little longer than everything else.”

“Yeah, I remember; your back was raw for a week,” Maze added.

“When was this?” Linda asked quickly.

“When I cut his wings off,” Maze replied. “And recently when the idiot did it himself.”

“You cut your wings off?” Ella gasped.

“That’s all in the past,” Lucifer brushed it off. “I haven't done that in a while, have I?”

Linda gave him a look that Ella had become familiar with, meaning he was going to talk about that later, but Lucifer managed to ignore her and smile brightly instead.

“Anyway, wings are tricky little buggers, but mine are well on their way to being all better, so let’s speak of something else, shall we?”

 _Smooth transition, Luce. Not at all suspicious_ Ella thought at him.

Lucifer suddenly burst out laughing, and it struck Ella as being the most real, least sarcastic laugh she’d ever heard from him.

“What?”

“Did you all plan that?” he asked.

Ella glanced at the others and saw Maze smirking and Linda looking confused. “What?” she repeated.

“Well, the three of you,” he said, taking a quick sip of his drink. “I haven’t had anyone inside m’head in ages, save for Maze when her mouth was full, and now you three are coming in in stereo! I half expected one of you to say “jinx” at the end.”

Realizing that all three had apparently called him out on his less-than-subtle transition at roughly the same time, Ella burst out laughing. “Jinx, then! One of you owes me another drink!” she teased, as Linda also chuckled.

“I’m actually surprised that you don’t get more.” Linda sipped her martini. “I mean, you literally worked a case with Satanists a few years ago. Do none of their prayers come through to you?”

Lucifer’s face fell a little, but he seemed to genuinely consider her words. “I used to have a theory about that, actually, but it's recently changed,” he said softly.

“What was your old theory?” Ella asked. She didn’t want to upset Lucifer, but she did love a good puzzle.

“Well, that case wasn’t my first time encountering the bloody fools,” Lucifer said. “And several centuries ago I overheard a prayer to the Devil with these ears,” he pointed at the side of his head, “but I couldn’t hear it inside.” He tapped his temple.

“I thought about it, and I assumed that it was because of my Fall. You know, take away my Grace and my ability to be bolstered by followers goes too. I mean, I knew I could hear Maze, but that worked both ways, so I assumed it was her nature, not mine, that powered it.”

“And now?” Linda prompted gently.

“Well I think it ties into Amenadiel’s self-actualization nonsense, actually,” Lucifer said. “Those fools, they’re praying to an evil, goat-headed Satan, and, well, that’s not me! But you and M- Ella, you are praying to _me_ , Lucifer, not some… insane idea of me.”

“You don’t believe you’re the same… entity that they’re looking for, so you don’t intercept their prayers.” Linda confirmed.

“Whereas you two have the right number already on speed-dial,” Lucifer agreed.

“That, makes sense, actually,” Ella said. The others looked at her with a range of confused emotions. “Look, my aunt is a Nun, yeah? And I’ve talked to her about this kind of thing before. When I was a kid, I wanted to know how it worked with there being so many religions and faiths on Earth. Like, Jews and Christians theoretically have the same God, right? So does _He_ hear both of them, but like, Jesus only hears the Christians? And if you believe, like most Christians do, that their God is _the_ God, then does anyone hear the prayers of people who believe in other deities?”

“Well, she told me that God probably listened to those people too, but didn’t necessarily answer. So if _He_ believes that, I don’t know, Hindus, are praying to Him too, then He’d hear them. But He would probably miss out on the Satanists, though.”

Lucifer and Maze both seemed to be considering her words, before the former finally nodded. “I suppose that’s not an entirely inaccurate read of the situation. And in fact I know that one of my siblings does indeed ‘get calls’ from people of all faiths. Though I do believe Father is a bit more selective than your Aunt would imagine.”

“Yeah, a lot of people talk to Death, regardless of what else they believe in,” a voice said from the balcony.

“Rae Rae?” Ella asked, turning. Her friend was done up in the same cloak and wings as last time, but then she shrugged, and the wings vanished. A second later, she morphed into the form that Ella knew best, glasses and all.

“Thanks for the help,” Maze said. “I’ve got your feathers somewhere safe.”

“Keep them,” Rae Rae waved her hand with a small smile. “I can’t exactly put them back now.”

“Ah, Doctor Linda, my sister, Azrael, or Rae Rae if you’re feeling friendly” Lucifer handled the introductions in his typical way.

“Oh? Oh!” Linda gulped. “It is very nice to meet you, Azrael. I’m very sorry about your knife.”

Rae Rae shrugged. “I’m not. I used it because Dad gave it to me, but I wasn’t all that attached to it. But it is very nice to meet you in person. Any friend of Lu’s is a friend of mine.”

“You’re being a lot nicer than usual,” Maze said suspiciously.

“Huh? This is how she always is?” Ella asked.

“Wait, you know Azrael?” Lucifer turned to look at Maze. “I didn’t realize you had ever handled her deliveries.”

“Yeah, we met a few times,” Maze said, “and she was pretty bitchy.”

“She didn’t just drop ‘n’ go?” Lucifer sounded confused, and Ella felt a little relieved that she wasn’t the only one unable to keep up.

“I- I don’t know,” Rae Rae said, shrugging uncomfortably. “I didn’t like being there, but I didn’t think I was _mean_ or anything.”

“Bloody hell!” Lucifer suddenly shouted. All four females turned to look at him.

“It’s all about that bloody knife!” He growled.

“What is?” Linda asked.

“Well it's obvious now!” Lucifer said. “Dad didn’t want me to have the flaming sword, right? So right before I rebelled, he broke it into three pieces. One he put on Earth, one he gave to Amenadiel, and one was Rae Rae’s knife! I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before now.”

“You think the knife affected her?” Maze asked.

“Well look at the humans it affected!” Lucifer replied.

“Wait, is this the murderous hot potato knife?” Ella asked. She hadn’t yet gotten the celestial backstory on that case, but the hints being dropped fit a little too well.

“Yes, yes. But you know, I don’t think it only affected humans,” Lucifer said. “Uriel had it too, and he- he was never so callous, before. I mean, he was willing to kill a _human_ just to hurt me while he was holding it.”

“You think that because Dad didn’t want you to have the sword, that my knife didn’t want me near you either?” Rae Rae connected the dots.

“Which explains why you were such a bitch around me,” Maze said, “you could tell I wasn’t just any demon, but _his_ demon.”

“And perhaps why you put off visiting?” Lucifer sounded almost hopeful at that, and Ella was suddenly struck by the realization that Azrael - her Rae Rae - might have been one of those siblings who never visited Lucifer in all the time he was in Hell. That didn’t fully jive with the Rae Rae that Ella knew, and she desperately hoped that the knife was at least partially the cause of their estrangement.

“You said that Amenadiel had the other piece?” Linda broke in.

“Yes, and he was constantly coming after me to drag me to Hell,” Lucifer replied. “He broke more than one bone in the attempt, I can tell you. And the first time that we connected, I mean actually talked, since the _dawn of humanity_ was when his necklace was stolen and he asked me to help find it.”

“As soon as he was out from under its influence,” Linda mused.

“Oh my g- g- l- Lucifer’s Dad!” Ella choked out. “Your Dad is _crazy_ more manipulative than I thought!”

“Well we don’t know for sure that he intended it that way,” Linda said, ever the voice of reason.

Lucifer sighed heavily. “I suppose it is... _possible_... that it was an unintended side effect of His feelings at the time that He... broke the flaming sword. As opposed to yet another manipulation” he conceded haltingly.

“Regardless of the reason,” Rae Rae said, “I have a lot to think about now, but that isn’t why I’m here, and I’m on a bit of a tight schedule.”

“By all means,” Lucifer said invitingly.

She moved faster than Ella could track, and suddenly appeared beside Lucifer. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Lu,” she gave him a quick hug.

Then she bestowed one on Ella as well. “Thanks for taking care of the big dope for me.”

“Any time,” Ella replied. And Ella knew she meant it, not just for Rae Rae’s sake, but for Lucifer’s as well. She’d be there for him any time, just like she would for one of her brothers.

Suddenly Rae Rae’s attempts to get her to stay in LA made a lot more sense. Ella’s brothers were gone, but Rae Rae’s was still here, and she was counting on Ella to look out for him.

“Guilty,” Rae Rae said. “Oh, look at the time, gotta go!”

With another rustle, she was gone, but Ella suspected that she was still listening. _We’ll talk later_ she promised.

“Well, with that out of the way, who’s up for a celebratory dinner?” Lucifer said cheerfully. “Junior is always willing to deliver to Lux, and his food is to die for.”

“I’m in,” Maze said quickly.

Ella didn’t know who ‘Junior’ was, but anything that Lucifer thought was ‘to die for’ had to be _amazing_. “Me too.”

“Why not?” Linda agreed.

“Excellent!” Lucifer pulled his phone out of his slacks and sent a quick text. “Now, whatever shall we do in the meantime?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw Maze lick her lips, and Lucifer’s head shot around to look at her. “Ooh, I suppose we could,” he chuckled.

“No,” Linda said. “Not any more. You know better.” Lucifer pouted, then turned his lascivious grin to Ella.

“Nuh uh, Luce. You’re like my brother, and I’m not that kind of sister.” To her surprise, instead of a pout, Lucifer grinned brightly.

“Right. Well, I’ve heard good things about a board game event called _family night_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End!
> 
> (Oh, and the penthouse code is HD48915: the scientific code for Sirius, aka the Morning Star ;) [well, there are three bodies called that, but the other two are actually planets...] )


End file.
